Quote Originally Posted by Ascended View Post
DC has tried to bring new readers into the direct market. So has everyone else. It doesn't work. Not to the degree it needs to. You think publishers haven't been trying this for decades, ever since the industry began to decline and they got trapped by the Diamond deal? Of course they have. Every damn year. Every possible gimmick and incentive and imprint and trick you can think of. It's been tried, and the DM has failed to bear fruit. Its not a growth industry, it's a dying one. So DC is now looking at other avenues to get their IP's out, and finally might maybe be taking that effort as the serious matter it is. They should've gotten serious about this fifteen years ago, if not twenty.

Yes, there absolutely is a market for kid-oriented books. That market isn't the DM. Which is why Moon Girl's best sales come from Scholastic book orders, the Super Sons omnibus sold so well in book stores, and all those YA novels and OGN's sell well. And Captain Marvel, Spider-Gwen, Squirrel Girl, and just about all those other hot new characters (well, Carol's not new but you get my drift) can't move a damn thing in the DM but do great in other formats. Kids aren't going to the comic shops. They're simply not.

The DM is still publishers' bread and butter. Not because it works, but because it's the only distribution and audience they've got. So no, it can't be abandoned until they're solidly entrenched in other markets. But the odds of the DM suddenly becoming healthy again? It's not happening man.
DC has tried to bring in new readers to the direct market certainly. But kid readers? Not really, no. Especially not in the last decade plus. With the exception of superhero TV show tie-ins and Super Sons, they really haven't tried anything that could appeal to that demo. Are these titles more successful in bookstores? Sure. But a lot of that is because often the message that people are sent is that kids are not welcome in comic book stores. I've seen some Comic Book stores do a wonderful job of making themselves welcoming space for families, but I've seen many more that make anyone who isn't a white adult male super uncomfortable. If you change the narrative, open the culture, and make monthly comics something for everyone, it could have a positive effect. And as you pointed out, since there is a market for these in bookstores, then making this attempt would already have ways in which it was profitable. Instead, DC cancels Super Sons and kills the momentum of the series and a potential way to welcome kids into the world of monthlies. There is no way in which that wasn't a mistake.